


This Time Around

by Halmaithor



Series: The Way Back Home [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Fluff, I think I'm okay tagging Alec because technically Raymond IS Alec?, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Past Character Death, nothing major just a brief mention of how that's the way the majority of warlocks are conceived, some sad moments but this is mostly fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23794432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halmaithor/pseuds/Halmaithor
Summary: ‘Are you nervous?’ Raymond asks.Magnus raises an eyebrow. ‘Should I be?’‘No,’ Raymond is quick to assure him. ‘My dad’s pretty chill.’‘I’m sure we’ll get on.’ Magnus chuckles. ‘Besides, it has to go better than the first time I met Alexander’s mother.’Follows 'We Always Seem to Find Our Way Back to Each Other'. Magnus meets Raymond's Mundane father.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Magnus Bane/Original Male Character(s)
Series: The Way Back Home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714231
Comments: 21
Kudos: 99





	This Time Around

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So, if you haven't read [‘We Always Seem to Find Our Way Back to Each Other’](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21229028/chapters/50542943):  
> 1) I would recommend it, I'm quite proud of that one. 🤭  
> 2) Basically (spoiler alert!) Magnus has known and loved Alec in three different lives. As Édouard, a Mundane in 18th Century France; then as our favourite grumpy Shadowhunter; and now, at the time of this fic, as a silver-eyed British warlock called Raymond Hughes. 
> 
> This is fairly niche, I'm aware! Nonetheless, if you give it a go, I hope you enjoy it. <3

‘Are you nervous?’ Raymond asks, swinging their joined hands between them as they walk along the terraced street, the ever-present hum of London all around them.  
Magnus raises an eyebrow. ‘Should I be?’  
‘No,’ Raymond is quick to assure him. ‘My dad’s nice, he’s not one of those… he’s not the sort to give you a ‘what are your intentions’ speech, or anything like that. He’s pretty chill.’  
‘I’m sure we’ll get on.’ Magnus chuckles. ‘Besides, it has to go better than the first time I met Alexander’s mother.’  
‘Really?’ Raymond asks. ‘I thought you two were close? Didn’t you say she walked you down the aisle?’  
‘She did – and you’re right, we ended up good friends,’ Magnus says. ‘But it definitely took us a while to get there, given our… disparate histories. I’ve rarely met someone who changed as drastically over the course of their life as Maryse did.’

They’ve reached the right house now, and Raymond jogs up the front few steps to ring the doorbell, Magnus nearly tripping over as their hands stay linked. ‘Raymond, are _you_ nervous?’ he asks gently.  
Raymond glances at him. ‘A little,’ he admits, though he’s smiling. ‘I’ve never actually brought a boyfriend home before.’  
Magnus squeezes his hand reassuringly, but doesn’t have time to answer before the door is swinging wide open.

‘Hello,’ greets the man behind it, smiling.  
‘Hi.’ Raymond steps forward, giving him a quick hug before he turns, holding out an arm to coax Magnus forward. ‘Dad, this is Magnus.’  
Magnus extends a hand. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Mr Hughes.’ He puts on his most charming smile, hoping that he isn’t staring in surprise. He hadn’t realised it until this moment, but he’d been expecting Robert Lightwood’s clone to open that door. Instead, Raymond’s father looks a lot more like his son; albeit considerably shorter, a little more plump, and with a full head of completely white hair, which looks a tad eccentric on his middle-aged face.  
He smiles, and it only serves to emphasise the family resemblance. ‘Please, call me Arthur,’ he says, taking Magnus’ hand in a firm shake. ‘Come in, come in.’ He begins to lead them through the narrow hallway, glancing back over his shoulder. ‘Not to sound like a stereotype, but do you want a cup of tea? I made a big pot, and it should be brewed by now.’  
‘Sounds wonderful, thank you,’ Magnus says.  
‘Yeah, I’ll have one,’ Raymond chimes in.  
‘Brilliant. Ray, you pour it.’  
Raymond gives an exaggerated sigh. ‘Should’ve seen that coming.’

  
‘I hope you don’t mind a little interrogation,’ Arthur jokes, once they’re settled in the lounge with their tea. ‘Ray hasn’t really told me anything except _I’m seeing someone, can I bring him on Saturday?’_  
‘Well, in fairness, we haven’t been together all that long,’ Magnus says. ‘This time around, at least,’ he adds with a smile.  
Arthur frowns in confusion. ‘This time around?’

‘Ah.’ Raymond sits forward a little. ‘That’s actually one of the reasons I wanted to bring Magnus today, Dad. It’s a bit of a crazy story, so I wanted us to tell you in person.’ He smiles. ‘So… turns out, Magnus and I were together in two of my previous lives.’  
‘Seriously?’ Arthur’s eyes widen, and he puts down his teacup. ‘That’s incredible – how the hell did you find out?’  
‘We didn’t have to,’ Raymond says, full-on grinning now. ‘Magnus is a warlock too. He was _there.’_

Magnus keeps his eyes fixed on Arthur, suddenly wary. Raymond’s apparently _told_ his father a few things about the Shadow World, but Magnus knows that Arthur’s been kept at something of a distance from its other inhabitants, and a Mundane’s first time actually _meeting_ someone with a few centuries under their belt is always a little unpredictable.

As it turns out, he has nothing to worry about. ‘That’s brilliant,’ Arthur says, looking at Magnus with a grin that matches his son’s. ‘It’s so nice that you and Ray can have all that… _magic stuff_ in common; I know I certainly struggle to keep up with half of what he says about potions and the like. Muggles, I suppose.’  
_‘Mundanes,_ Dad. Not muggles.’  
‘But _muggle_ is a much nicer word,’ Arthur argues, before turning back to Magnus. ‘Oh – does this mean you can do that portal thing? I always thought that was dead impressive.’  
‘…I can,’ Magnus says, a little bewildered by Arthur’s enthusiasm.  
Raymond nudges him, a look of proud encouragement on his face. ‘Actually, Magnus _invented_ the portal,’ he says.  
Arthur’s jaw drops. ‘No.’  
Magnus inclines his head in modest capitulation.  
‘Incredible,’ Arthur says, shaking his head. ‘This is a random question, I know – but I always wondered, and I reckon you’d be the best person to ask. Did those old _Portal_ games plagiarise that idea from warlocks? From you?’  
Magnus chuckles. ‘Not at all. I sold it to them, and received a design credit under a pseudonym. It was all completely above board.’

  
Sometime later, once they’ve told Arthur the rest of their story – Magnus meeting Édouard for the first time, his life with Alexander, Max spotting Raymond at the local Downworlder pub and taking him to Alicante and New York – Arthur asks if there are any photos from Raymond’s previous lives, and Magnus summons an album for them to look through while Raymond goes and makes another pot of tea.  
Magnus has never had the patience for keeping photo albums – he keeps photos, of course, just not laid out into categories and neatly presented like this. This one had appeared on his coffee table on the first anniversary of Alexander’s death, with a note from Max and Rafe.

_We know you wanted some space today, but we wanted to make sure you’re remembering the good times. Call if you need anything, or if you just want to talk. We love you._

Magnus had avoided the photo album all day, and then had looked through it all night, crying his eyes out and managing to get through an entire bottle of stupidly expensive whiskey.  
Now, looking at the photos with Arthur, it’s a different feeling.  
He can’t quite forget the pain of loss twice over; in fact, Raymond has just started sleeping some nights at the loft, and sometimes, when he’s a little too still, Magnus feels the low thrum of panic in his chest as two of his worst memories threaten to resurface.  
But he’s learned, now – learned to lean a little closer; to feel the heat of his lover’s skin; to focus on the barely-there brush of their two magics, which is a feeling as alive as a heartbeat, and steadier than a breath, and infinitely comforting. After all, it’s a lot harder to get dragged down by the grief of the past when you’re gazing out into a beautiful, indefinite future.

Arthur’s fingertips skim the edge of one of the photos – a shot of Magnus and a slightly elderly Alexander, feeding moorhens at a pond and laughing. Beneath the photo, in Rafe’s elegant cursive, the caption reads _Bapa’s 817 th Birthday. _‘Eight-hundred and seventeen?’ Arthur asks absentmindedly. ‘I can’t even imagine that much time.’  
‘Well, I’m eight-hundred and fifty-four now,’ Magnus says, ‘and honestly? Neither can I. Sometimes a day can feel like a decade, and vice versa.’ Knowing how old he is to the year, rather than the decade, is still something of a novelty. Sometime back in the late nineteenth century, he realised that he’d forgotten the actual number, and it only came back to light when Ragnor returned from his stint of being ‘dead’ and revealed that he had kept a much better track of the years than Magnus had.  
_Oh, don’t be so old-fashioned; you’re only seven-hundred and eighty-one, there’s no excuse. Once you reach a millennium, maybe – …What? Of course I know how old you are, you silly buggar._

Arthur is still considering the photo. ‘It’s a strange feeling,’ he admits. ‘Seeing your own son as an old man.’  
He suddenly looks up at Magnus, a sheepish expression on his face. ‘Sorry. Look who I’m talking to. You must know that feeling a lot more intimately than I do.’  
Magnus gives him a wan smile. ‘No need to apologise. It is a little strange, at times.’ Mostly, he tries not to think about it. Losing Alexander was bad enough, especially since it came only a few years after he lost Raphael. He doesn’t know how on earth he and Max will make it through when they lose Rafe.  
He banishes that train of thought, sternly reminding himself that Rafe is in excellent health, and could well have a couple of decades yet.

Raymond walks in with refilled mugs of tea just as Arthur flips the page into the _Max_ section. The first photo is a full-page one of Max taking his first steps – from Magnus, towards Alexander, the camera being held up by Magnus’ magic – his horns barely stubs at that point, and the light blue onesie almost white against his bright blue skin.  
‘I wish we’d organised this for Tuesday-just-gone instead,’ Arthur says. ‘Your mother came by that day, and I would’ve _loved_ to see her reaction to suddenly becoming a grandmother out of nowhere.’ He grins, but then it falters. ‘Is everything okay, Magnus?’  
Magnus realises that his surprise must be showing on his face. ‘Perfectly fine,’ he reassures Arthur. ‘I’m just a little surprised – I thought Raymond said you were a single parent?’

Arthur’s gaze darts to Raymond, and he looks a little guilty. ‘I’m sorry, Ray. He’s a warlock, too, and you two are together – I thought you would have told him.’  
‘It’s fine,’ Raymond mutters – though when he turns to face Magnus, clearing his throat, he looks undeniably tense. ‘So – uh – my parents’… _situation_ is a little – _unusual,_ for a warlock…’  
‘Which is not a bad thing,’ Arthur says, taking over when Raymond trails off, apparently unsure how to broach this topic. ‘Raymond tells me that the vast majority of warlocks are born out of some sort of rape,’ he says seriously, before lightening his tone again as he continues, ‘but that’s not the case here, with me and Anya. See, I was part of the ‘Occult Society’ at my university; basically, every Friday, we would meet up to eat junk food and talk about supernatural conspiracy theories, cryptids, et cetera. Sometimes, we would go through these old texts the society president found from god-knows-where, and try summoning various spirits and demons. Mostly, it was just a laugh – there weren’t a lot of ‘true believers’ there, and we never even got anything coherent out of the Ouija board,’ he jokes. ‘But in my final year, we met up on the day before Valentine’s Day, and someone suggested it was _seasonally appropriate_ to try and summon a succubus. So, we drew this pentagram in chalk, said some Latin, burned an ox heart or something that the VP had bought at the butcher’s… and suddenly, bam! There stands a beautiful woman – red eyes, surrounded by smoke, _definitely_ not there a few seconds previously.’ He laughs. ‘And she looks around us all – and no-one’s even _breathing,_ we’re all too surprised, and a couple of people look like they’re about to pass out – and she asks who among us is going to ‘fulfil the contract’.’

Raymond blushes furiously, looking very determinedly down at his tea, but Arthur keeps going. ‘And I guess everyone else was too chicken,’ he chuckles. ‘But I checked she didn’t want my soul, or something, and then I thought… sure, why not? And we ended up spending the night together, and I figured that was it.’ He nods in Raymond’s direction. ‘But then ten months later, she turns up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, holding baby Ray in her arms and saying something about a _magical fluctuation_ on the night we were together. She tells me she can’t exactly raise him in _hell_ _–_ which, you know, fair enough – and asks if I can take him.’ His smile turns fond. ‘And I look down at this little bundle, all dark hair and those eyes of his; and I say _yeah, okay, I’ll take him._ So, Anya left him with me, and managed to put me in touch with the London branch of the Spiral Labyrinth… and the rest is history.’ He settles back in his chair. ‘She comes by every few months or so, right, Ray?’

‘Yeah, a few times a year.’ Raymond says, quietly. ‘Dad, could you give us a minute?’  
Arthur looks between them, knowingly. ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll go see if we’ve got any biscuits.’

He leaves – and the moment he closes the door behind him, Raymond looks back up at Magnus, his gaze unwavering. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ he says. ‘I wanted to, I just – sometimes people get funny about it, you know? If you tell them you’re in regular contact with a demon. But Mum isn’t – I mean, you know how succubi work, right?’  
_They feed on pleasure,_ Magnus’ mind supplies – but it’s Raymond’s mother they’re talking about, so he leaves that as a silent insight and just nods.  
‘Yeah, so – Mum’s not _evil,_ or anything. She isn’t the kind that tries to take your soul as well, or the kind that kills people after they’ve fed.’ He gives a sad sort of smile. ‘But I know it sounds suspicious, and I guess I just got worried what you might think of me. That you might think I’m into something shady.’ He looks increasingly uncertain, almost fearful.

Magnus reaches out, cupping Raymond’s jaw with one hand, linking their hands together with the other. ‘It’s all right,’ he murmurs. ‘I understand.’  
Raymond breathes out a sigh of relief. ‘Yeah?’ he almost whispers. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, or anything like that. Because I do.’  
‘I know,’ Magnus says, and he presses a soft kiss to Raymond’s lips, drawing back with a small smile. ‘And I’m glad you have her in your life.’  
Raymond smiles back at him. ‘Yeah,’ he agrees. ‘Obviously, she’s not raised me the way Dad has, but… it’s nice to know she cares. At least enough to check in every now and then.’

He sits up a little straighter, nodding towards the kitchen. ‘Speaking of, we should probably go check on Dad,’ he says. ‘The biscuits might be on the top shelf, and he’s too short to reach.’  
Magnus chuckles. ‘Well, we can’t have that.’

They wander through to the kitchen, and sure enough, Arthur is reaching up with a pair of silicone-tipped tongs to try and grab the cylinder of biscuits that’s rolled all the way to the back of the shelf. Raymond reaches up – a faint glow starting to come from the tips of his fingers, as even his impressive height proves no match for the elusive snack – and while he’s retrieving said snack, he asks Magnus to get a few plates out of the biggest cupboard by the oven.

Magnus obliges, fetching a small plate for each of them. They’ve been here less than three hours, but he already feels remarkably at home.  
It’s a realisation that leaves him smiling for the rest of the visit.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you enjoyed it. ^^  
> [Find me on tumblr: silver-latin-and-salt :)](https://silver-latin-and-salt.tumblr.com/)


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